Читать книгу The Condition of Catholics Under James I - Gerard John - Страница 9

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“During my stay in this prison, I found means to give the Spiritual Exercises. The gaoler did as I wished him to do; he never came to me without being called, and never went into my neighbours' rooms at all. So we fitted an upper chamber to serve as a chapel, where six or seven made the Exercises, all of whom resolved to follow the counsels of Christ our Lord, and not one of them flinched from his purpose.

“I found means also to provide for a very pressing need. Many Priests of my acquaintance, being unable to meet with safe lodgings when they came to London, used to put up at inns till they had settled the business that brought them. Again, as my abode was fixed, and easy to find, the greater part of the Priests that were sent from the Seminaries abroad had instructions to apply to me, that through me they might be introduced to their Superior, and might receive other assistance at my hands. Not having always places prepared, nor houses of Catholics to which I could send them, I rented a house and garden in a suitable spot, and furnished it, as far as was wanted, by the help of my friends. Thither I used to send those who brought letters of recommendation from our Fathers, and who I was assured led a holy life and seemed well fitted for the mission. I maintained them there till I had supplied them, through the aid of certain friends, with clothes and necessaries, sometimes even with a residence, or with a horse to go to their friends and kinsmen in the country. I covered all the expenses of this house with the [pg lxxiii] alms that were bestowed on me. I did not receive alms from many persons, still less from all that came to see me; indeed, both out of prison and in prison, I often refused such offers. I was afraid that if I always accepted what was offered, I might scare from me souls that wished to treat with me on the business of their salvation; or receive gifts from those that could either ill afford it, or would afterwards repent of it. I made it a rule, therefore, never to take alms except from a small number of persons, whom I knew well. Most of what I got was from those devoted friends, who offered me not only their money but themselves, and looked upon it as a favour when I took their offer.

“I gave charge of this house to a very godly and discreet matron of good birth, whom the Lord honoured with martyrdom.66 Her maiden name was Heigham, but she bore the name of Line from her deceased husband. Both she and her husband were beloved by God, and had much to suffer for His sake. This lady's father was a Protestant, and when he heard of his daughter's becoming a Catholic, he withheld the dower which he had promised her. He disinherited one of his sons for the same reason. This son, called William Heigham, is now in Spain, a Lay-brother of the Society. It is twenty-six years since I knew him. He was then a well-educated gentleman, finely dressed like other high-born Londoners. He supported a Priest named Thomson, whom I afterwards saw martyred. As soon as his father learned that he, too, had become a Catholic, he went and sold his estate, the rents of which were reckoned at 6,000 florins [600l.] yearly, that it might not pass to his son. The son was afterwards arrested for the Faith; and he and his Priest together, if I mistake not, were thrown into the prison of Bridewell, where vagrants are shut up and put to hard labour under the lash. I paid him a visit there, and found him toiling at the tread-mill, all covered with sweat. On recovering his freedom he hired himself out as a servant to a gentleman, that had to wife a [pg lxxiv] Catholic lady whom I knew. She intrusted her son to his care: he taught the boy the ground-work of the Latin tongue, besides giving him lessons on the harp, which he himself touched admirably. I went to see him in this situation, and had a long talk with him about his call to his present state.

“Mistress Line, his sister, married a good husband and a staunch Catholic. He had been heir to a fine estate; but his father or uncle (for he was heir to both) sent a message from his death-bed to young Line, then a prisoner for the Faith, asking him to conform and go to some heretical church for once; otherwise he would have to give up his inheritance to his younger brother. ‘If I must either give up God or the world,’ was his courageous answer, ‘I prefer to give up the world, for it is good to cleave unto God.’ So both his father's and his uncle's estate went to his younger brother. I saw this latter once in his elder brother's room, dressed in silk and other finery, while his brother had on plain and mean clothes. This good man afterwards went into Belgium, where he obtained a pension from the King of Spain, part of which he sent to his wife; and thus they lived a poor and holy life. His death, which happened in Belgium, left his widow friendless, so that she had to look to Providence for her support. Before my imprisonment she had been charitably taken by my entertainers into their own house. They furnished her with board and lodging, and I made up the rest.

“She was just the sort of person that I wanted as head of the house that I have spoken of, to manage the money matters, take care of the guests, and meet the inquiries of strangers. She had good store of charity and wariness, and in great patience she possessed her soul. She was nearly always ill from one or other of many divers diseases, which purified her and made her ready for Heaven. She used often to say to me: ‘Though I desire above all things to die for Christ, I dare not hope to die by the hand of the executioner; but perhaps the Lord will let me be taken some time in the same house with a Priest, and then be thrown into a chill and filthy dungeon, where I shall not be able to last out long in this wretched life.’ Her delight was in the Lord, and the Lord granted her the desires of her heart.

“When I was rescued out of prison, she gave up the management [pg lxxv] of my house; for then so many people knew who she was, that her being in a place was enough to render it unsafe for me. So a room was hired for her in another person's house, where she often used to harbour Priests. One day (it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin) she let in a great many Catholics to hear Mass, a thing which she would never have done in my house. Good soul, she was more careful of me than of herself. Some neighbours noticed the throng, and called the constables. They went upstairs into the room, which they found full of people. The celebrant was Father Francis Page, S.J., who was afterwards martyred.67 He had pulled off his vestments before the Priest-hunters came in; so that they could not readily make out which was the Priest. However, from the Father's grave and modest look, they thought that he must be their man. Accordingly, they laid hold of him, and began questioning him and the others also. No one would own that there was a Priest there; but as the altar had been found ready for Mass, they acknowledged that they had been waiting for a Priest to come. While the Catholics and their persecutors were wrangling on this point, Father Francis Page, taking advantage of some one's opening the door, got away from those that held him and slipped out, shutting the door behind him. He then went upstairs to a place that he knew, where Mrs. Line had had a hiding-place made, and there he ensconced himself. Search was made for him the whole house over, to no purpose.

“So they took Mrs. Line and the richer ones of the party to prison, and let the others go on bail. God lengthened out the martyr's life beyond her expectation. It was some months before she was brought to trial, on a charge of harbouring and supporting Priests. To the question of ‘guilty or not guilty,’ she made no direct answer, but cried out in a loud voice, so that all could hear her: ‘My lords, nothing grieves me, but that I could not receive a thousand more.’68 She listened to the sentence of death with great show of joy and thanksgiving to the Lord God. She was so weak, that she had to be carried to Court in [pg lxxvi] a chair, and sat there during the whole of the trial. After her return to prison, a little before her death, she wrote to Father Page, who had escaped. The letter is in my hands at present. She disposed therein of the few things that she had, leaving to me a fine large cross of gold that had belonged to her husband. She mentioned me thrice in the letter, calling me her Father. She also left some few debts which she begged me to see paid. Afterwards she bequeathed me her bed by word of mouth. I wanted to purchase it from the gaolers, who had plundered everything found in her cell after her death; but I could only get the coverlet, which I used ever after during my stay in London, and reckoned it no small safeguard.

“Being arrived at the place of punishment, some preachers wanted to tease her, as usual, with warnings to abandon her errors; but she cut them short, saying, ‘Away! I have no dealings nor communion with you.’ Then, kissing the gallows with great joy, she knelt down to pray, and kept on praying till the hangman had done his duty. So she gave up her soul to God, along with the martyr Father Filcock, S.J.,69 who had often been her confessor, and had always been her friend. Her martyrdom, however, happened six or seven years after the time of which I am now speaking. She managed my house for three years, and received therein many holy Priests.”

“I always had a Priest residing in this house, whom I used to send to assist and console my friends, as I was unable, during my imprisonment, to visit them myself. The first I had there was Father Jones, a Franciscan Recollect, afterwards martyred,70 but then newly arrived in England. … After him I received another Priest, lately arrived from Spain, and formerly known to me, Robert Drury by name. He was of gentle birth and well educated, and could consequently associate with gentlemen without causing any suspicion. I introduced him, therefore, to my chief friends; and he assisted them well and zealously for [pg lxxvii] two years and more that he tarried in my house. This good Priest also God chose to be His witness and martyr. …”

“In that house of mine, while I was in prison, there lived awhile one of our Fathers, who was in ill health, Father John Curry. There also he died, and there he lies buried in some secret corner. For those Priests who live secretly on the mission, we are obliged also to bury secretly when they die.

“All this while my good host, who had been taken a little before me, was kept imprisoned; and for the first four months so straitly, that neither his wife nor any of his friends were allowed to have any access to him. After this, however, the persecutors, seeing that they could not produce any proof against him, because none of the Catholic servants would acknowledge anything and the traitor had never seen me in Priest's guise, and was only one witness after all, by degrees relaxed a little of their harshness, and permitted him to be visited and cared for, though they still kept him in strict custody.

“While thus close shut up, he wrote a work by no means contemptible, which he divided into three parts, and called ‘Three Farewells to the world, or three deaths in different states of soul.’71 In the first book he described a man of moral life, and virtuous in the opinion of men, but directing himself in all things by his own lights. … In the second book he described a good and pious lady, who at first wished to be guided in everything, but subsequently, deceived by the devil, determined in some things to follow her own ideas. … In the third book he described the death of a pious and devoted man, who, though living in the world and possessed of riches, yet always sought and followed the counsels of his spiritual Father, manifesting himself entirely for the purpose of being directed by him to the greater glory of God.” …

“It was written, not with ink, but merely with pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, for at that time he was kept so close that he could get no ink. As he finished each of the three parts, he sent it to me, that I might correct anything I might find against sound doctrine. He gave as a reason for writing the work, that he had himself found, as he thought, so immense [pg lxxviii] a benefit from giving himself thoroughly to the direction of his spiritual guide, and had felt in consequence so undisturbed a peace of mind, even when the malice of the persecutors was daily threatening him with death, that he could not refrain from recommending the same course to others whom he loved. He said, moreover, that he wrote the book, not for the public, but principally for his own family, and secondly for his relations and friends; for that, as he could not communicate with them by word of mouth, he desired to show them in writing the most secure and meritorious way to perfection while living in the world. For he endeavoured to prove that perfection was even more necessary for those who lived in the world than for Religious.

“Such were the sentiments of this good man. He noways regretted that he had during four years given himself up to my direction, though he found himself in consequence exposed to such extreme distresses, and saw his family and fortune made a mark for the persecutors as a result of having harboured me. Nay, it was not only that he bore all these trials patiently, but he really thought it all joy to suffer thus for the good cause. His wife, also, though she loved her husband most tenderly, and was of a peculiarly sensitive mind, yet in this juncture bore everything with a singular sweetness and patience. After I was transferred to the Clink, where there was more chance of communicating with me either by word or letter, she took a house in the immediate neighbourhood of my prison, in order that she might consult me constantly, and provide me with everything I needed. In this house she and her husband, who obtained his release after a time by large payments of money, resided while I remained in that prison. But after my escape from the Tower, they betook themselves back to their country seat, in order that they might have me with them there again.”